"Lou Tropes Press"

Aborted Arc: His "disputed" NWA World Heavyweight Champion angle was put to an end when Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn left the NWA and the NWA president Sam Muchnick put an end to "the dispute", "assuring" everyone Édouard Carpentier had no claim to a victory over Thesz.

The Ace: Lou Thesz is technically the second NWA World Champion but is considered to be the first true "world" champion because he went around defeating the holders of rival belts to that claim and unifying them with his own.

Badass Boast: When he came out of semi-retirement in 1963 to fight Buddy Rogers for the World Heavyweight Championship, Rogers was supposedly having second thoughts about dropping the title to Thesz. Thesz made him this offer: "We could do this The Easy Way or the Hard Way." Rogers dropped the title.

Also to non-pro wrestlers like Tony Cecchine; famous for his Lost Art of Hooking video series and other instructionals on catch wrestling, & Jim Arvanitis; the man who has been trying to repopularise the Greek martial art of Pankration since 1973 with his own form of it he calls Neo-Pankration.

Foreign Wrestling Heel: Was one in Japan, and even agreed to put over Rikidozan to give the Japanese fans a hero to rally behind. He also ended up giving the JWA the NWA International Title, a semi-unsanctioned title Thesz defended overseas, and which is still part of the All Japan Triple Crown.

Living Legend: Come on. Just read his damn biography and tell me he wasn't.

Muscles Are Meaningless: In the modern era when even lightweight wrestlers are often expected to look like they're cut from stone, the balding, slightly paunchy Thesz doesn't exactly cut an impressive figure. Anyone in the business will tell you that Thesz could tie them into human pretzels without breaking a sweat.

The Power Bomb, belly-to-back waistlock suplex, the stepover toehold facelock (STF) and the Lou Thesz press, naturally, are all credited to him.

The first Universal Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Champion. The athletic commission awarded him this title belt based on his performance in a Lucha Libre Internacional match against Mil Máscaras that ended in a time limit draw.

Vitriolic Best Buds: Karl Gotch. Thesz and he tended to badmouth each other and supposedly had a real brawl during a match, but they deep down respected each other and stayed in good terms until their deaths.

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